Just One Yesterday
by secretkitkat
Summary: It's been six years since Renesmee Cullen and Jacob Black fled from a horrific battle with the Volturi. Now nearing adulthood, Renesmee's growth has slowed enough for her to attend human high school. But the Volturi and even less savory characters are searching for her. And has any of her family survived? A troubled Renesmee must face her traumatic past - and her uncertain future.


Author's Note: Hi! I'm not sure how many people still read Twilight fic. I just reread the series and this idea wouldn't let me go. The premise: Alice arrives with Nahuel too late at the end of Breaking Dawn. A battle breaks out. Jacob and Renesmee are forced to run.

PLEASE drop me a review if you want to see more of this - reviews are the only real way I have to tell if people are interested!

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Jacob caught me coming back from the club.

It was funny - up until that moment, I'd been having a great time. I had about a hundred different IDs with varying names and birth dates. It wasn't like none of them had reached eighteen yet, since we'd prepared for the future. I couldn't pass for twenty-one, but I could still get in with a little X on my hand to let the bartenders know not to serve me alcohol. If we'd been just about anywhere else in the world, eighteen would have been old enough. But we lived in California now - at my request - so the drinking age was tragically higher.

Granted, I was technically only six years old anyway. But that didn't mean I was opposed to a good time.

The night was balmy and humid, still save the occasional honking of cars in the distance. It was easy to dart through the alley beside the building and jump to the fire escape. Easier still to head up the five stories to my bedroom window. I was almost tempted to go all the way to the roof. Despite the humidity, the sky was clear, and I wanted to look at the stars. The artificial light of the city would have spoiled the view, though. I made a mental note to ask Jacob to take me out into the desert later.

This was all I was thinking about as I slid the window open and slipped inside. That, and how nice the air conditioning felt against my sweaty skin. It was hard for me to get too hot or too cold, running as warm as I always did, but I'd done a lot of dancing tonight.

Jacob flicked on my bedside lamp and gave me the most disapproving look I'd ever seen.

I hadn't scented him on the fire escape, which meant he hadn't climbed out the window to look for me. A semi-plausible lie was already on my lips. "I needed to get some air, so I went up to the roof," I said, shrugging my backpack off. It was amazing, the ease with which I could make lies sound like the truth.

It was also amazing the ease with which Jacob could tell I was lying regardless. "I came in here and you were gone."

"On the roof."

"What's on your hand?"

Crap. I rubbed at the permanent marker X like it wasn't a dead giveaway. "Doodled on myself."

"Nessie."

"What does it matter?" I hated the way he was looking at me, and I knew I should try to calm him down, but my natural instinct was defensiveness. My shoulders hunched inward. "I'm fine."

" _I came in here and you were gone._ "

I already knew how the rest of this conversation went. I could not afford to sneak out, be rebellious, have normal teenage experiences. I needed to be on my best behavior at all times. I needed to be as unnoticeable as possible, which wasn't easy with a vampire's face. I needed to be good at hiding.

Jacob wasn't wrong, which made things more infuriating. There were who knew how many people searching the globe for me. I had a death sentence on my head. That we hadn't been tracked yet meant little. We'd spent the first years of my life constantly running - first in Rio de Janeiro, then Buenos Aires, then a small town in Guatemala. We'd briefly lived in Tokyo, Shanghai, London, Paris, Dublin. Anywhere I wanted to go, Jacob took me. Anything I wanted to do, Jacob let me. But the rules were always the same: Don't go too far alone. Don't attract attention. Don't put yourself at risk. The Volturi desperately wanted to get their hands on me. And we couldn't stay long anywhere anyway, because I was growing too fast.

It was enough to make me want to scream.

I knew I couldn't afford to do things like this. I knew Jacob would worry himself sick. I knew Jacob would never let me to go a club whether he was with me or not. I knew Jacob would never risk me having a social life. Not even when my growth had slowed down enough for me to pass as human. We'd been living in this apartment for six months, and I was still growing more rapidly than human average, but not so quickly it couldn't be attributed to a growth spurt. No doubt we'd have to move again soon. The Volturi had eyes everywhere.

Jacob was right to worry. Right to protect me. Right to be angry. I should have been upset that I was causing him pain. It was _spoiled_ to be upset for my own sake.

"I just wanted to have a little fun," I told him, making my tone as soft and beseeching as I could. "I checked the scents around the place before I went in. No vampires. The most dangerous thing there was me."

He watched me for a long, long moment. "Your pupils are dilated."

"It's dark outside."

"Nessie."

I couldn't look him in the face. "I took two pills. There was a guy selling them. They were wrapped up, though. Individually packaged. So I don't think they'd been tampered with."

In an instant, Jacob was trembling. I could see the fine tremors racing along his arms and legs, turning the hard line of his shoulders to a blur. His shaking was a bad sign. He'd had years to perfect control over his shifting. It took a lot to push him to the edge, especially around me. I wasn't sure what to say to make it better - I'd never been good with words. The only thing that would calm him down was assurance that I was fine.

So instead of ducking back out the window, I stole over to the bed and climbed onto the mattress beside him. My fingertips pressed gently against his cheek. I replayed the whole evening for him, trying to go in slow motion since whatever I'd taken made my thoughts a little faster than usual.

I'd waited until I could hear snoring coming from his bedroom. Then I'd tucked my ID into my purse and shrugged on my backpack. Opening and closing the window had been the most nerve-wracking part - I could move soundlessly, but I was sure that soft noise would give me away. My heart had thrummed even faster than usual as I darted down the fire escape and onto the street. It wasn't until I was four blocks away that my breathing returned to normal.

I'd felt the thrum of the heavy beat under my feet a block before I even reached the club. As promised, I'd sniffed out the entrance, the side alleys, and the back door to be sure no floral scent clung. The bouncer gave my ID a disinterested look, marked my hand, and waved me in. If he was startled by my appearance, he didn't show it. Maybe he was too tired. Maybe he'd seen enough beautiful girls using scores of makeup.

My purse and backpack weren't searched. It was a seedy sort of club, the kind you'd go to when looking for illegal fun. The idea of losing the pack made me anxious - there was nothing in it that mattered, but my mother had given it to me years ago. The pack hadn't been important to her, but the contents were. Money, new identities, and letters. It was one of the only things I had left from her. I used it like any high schooler might to carry things. My locket, my most treasured possession besides the letter, I'd left on my bedside table. I wouldn't risk losing that.

Inside, the dance floor strobed with a dizzying array of colors. They shifted so fast that they blurred even to my sight. Bodies moved together, close-packed. The heady smell of their sweat and blood and hormones permeated the air. It was a scent that should have been disgusting, but it electrified me. Being around this many humans at once - I could feel their energy in the space between us. I felt like hunting, but I wasn't anywhere near out of control.

There were couches behind the dance floor, places people could rest when they were tired. I'd worked my way slowly toward them, attracting some attention as I went. I was not oblivious to what I looked like. But here, everyone was starry and beautiful. I didn't stand out nearly as much as I would on the street.

There'd been an average looking human boy sitting on one of the couches, a very pretty human girl splayed across his lap. I'd asked them to make room. She'd grinned and scooted over. Her eyes were very blue - the kind of blue that could only be achieved with contacts - and ringed with metallic silver that reflected the shifting lights. Her lipstick was dark red. The boy had asked us to kiss…

I flew through that bit of the memory. I hadn't bitten her; that was the important part. And then the boy had given me a fist bump and two little white pills. I'd taken them. I already knew the place was safe, and what were human drugs going to do to me? I was half vampire. I grew at a rapid rate. My lifespan was either incredibly short, or I'd be immortal once I fully stopped growing up. Jacob was perpetually terrified of the first option. I'd made my peace with the second - but maybe it had made me reckless. At any rate, I'd probably process substances faster than a human would. In fact, I could feel myself sobering up now as I relayed the night to Jacob.

The pills had made me want to move. I'd gotten up and danced until I was breathless. Then I'd fallen, giggling, over the back of one of the couches. Everything was a little blurry around the edges. I wanted it to be. I was tired of being myself. I wanted to be someone else for a little bit, a fun-loving club goer who didn't care about more than the dance. After all, wasn't that what everyone else there was doing? What could possibly be so wrong with that?

And then it had gotten late enough that I decided it was time to make my way home. I'd left the club through the entrance I came in, the place still free of vampire scent. Then I'd run back to the apartment complex at a slightly faster than human pace and climbed my way up to the window.

By the time I finished showing him, Jacob had stopped trembling. It was clear from the memories that I'd never been in any danger. Even if someone there had tried something malicious, I was definitely sober enough to punch them. I drew back into the present and looked at his face. What I saw there startled me - his eyes were impossibly sad.

My chest twisted. My throat clogged. Jacob's anger and worry were things I could deal with; I'd been dealing with them my entire life. But this sadness was something else. I shoved a wordless exclamation into his head. Loosely translated: _No! I had fun tonight! These are good memories!_

"I know I shouldn't have gone out without telling you," I said aloud, leaning my forehead against his. "I'm really sorry about that. I won't do it again."

"Renesmee," he said, his voice very quiet. I knew it was serious because he used my full name. "I could have tracked your scent tonight. I thought about it. But I knew nobody had been in your room. I knew you'd gone out the window. I could find you through your phone, and I knew you hadn't gone far from the apartment. Renesmee. Why did you feel like you needed to do this?"

The defensiveness reared up again. I pulled back, severing our connection by dropping my hand to my lap. "I only felt guilty because I thought you worried. You always jump to the worst possible conclusions-"

"I'm trying to let you have a life. I don't control your every move. I don't _want_ to control your every move. Hell, Ness. I understand why you'd want to go out. Trust me. I remember being your age perfectly well."

"Six?"

"Okay," he said, rolling his eyes, "I remember being your _maturity_ perfectly well."

"Are you saying I'm immature?"

"Well? Yeah."

I bristled.

"It's to be expected, Ness. You're just figuring out who you are and what you want. I'm trying to give you space to do that. That's why I didn't come after you tonight - why I didn't call you to come home. I trusted that you were being safe. I'd have come for you in a heartbeat if I thought you were in danger. But this - this wasn't safe."

"I'm a half vampire. What's going to hurt me?"

He recoiled like I'd slapped him. I bit my tongue hard. That was… quite possibly the stupidest thing I could have said. We already knew what could hurt me. It had destroyed my family. Destroyed his family. His brothers, his sister. All of them gone. And the same would happen to me if we weren't careful. I'd heard him wake up crying out a few times. His nightmares were more infrequent than mine, but he also didn't sleep as well.

"Jake, I-"

I didn't know how to finish the thought. Instead I pressed my hand to his cheek, wordless remorse between us.

He tried to smile. "We're not done talking about this," he said, patting my other hand. "But you've already heard everything I could say tonight. I just want you to know I'm not angry. I'm concerned for you, that's all. I don't like that you feel the need to keep things from me."

There he went again - saying exactly what I wanted to hear. It just made the guilt worse. He was so good at being around me even though I'd ruined his entire life, and for what? My spoiled self running off and popping pills because he wasn't enough?

Maybe only having one other person in my life would have been enough if I'd been like my mother. If I'd been quiet, introverted, content to curl up with a book on a rainy day. But I'd always had a restless spirit. I was adventurous. I wanted to see the world - and then seeing the world wasn't enough. I wanted Jacob, and I had him all to myself, and that wasn't enough. I wanted -

I wanted my family.

After Jacob was gone, I picked up the locket from the bedside table, the chain slinking through my fingers. I had the photo inside memorized even though I hadn't opened it in ages. The necklace nestled just above my heart when it clasped. I liked to wind the chain around my hands like a string of worry beads. My personal talisman, my warding against bad luck.

If I was being honest, there was more on my mind when I left the apartment tonight than I'd let on. More on my mind than a fledgling spirit seeking adventure. There was more on my mind when I swallowed the pills. I hadn't wanted to sharpen or dull anything about the club. The club, in all its hazy and strobe-light glory, was perfect as it was. I'd just wanted to put my memories somewhere else for a while.

I should have slept, but I knew the guilt and shame would eat away at me for hours. Taking the pills had not been worth the emotional consequences. I pulled my laptop from the floor and booted it up, listlessly checking my messages. I had never had any permanent social media presences or email addresses. They changed as easily as my identity.

So the contact request blinking on my Skype account could not be real.

 _Renesmee Cullen. Do I finally have the right address? Please don't be frightened. We must speak._

I stared at the door where Jacob had left. Already I could hear his snores from the other room. He always fell asleep so quickly. That was for the best - he couldn't hear the way my heart rate and breathing pitched upward. I'd made him worry enough for one night. Someone who intended to do me harm surely could have found me through the Internet signal, right? This had to be benign. And maybe - the hope fluttered against my ribcage, and I tried hard to squash it down, but maybe - maybe -

Maybe someone in my family was alive after all.

I held my breath and hit Accept.


End file.
